Snappy app trust model January 30, 2015

Most of this has been discussed on mailing lists, blog entries, etc, while developing Ubuntu Touch, but I wanted to write up something that ties together these conversations for Snappy. This will provide background for the conversations surrounding hardware access for snaps that will be happening soon on the snappy-devel mailing list.

Background

Ubuntu Touch has several goals that all apply to Snappy:

• we want system-image upgrades
• we want to replace the distro archive model with an app store model for Snappy systems
• we want developers to be able to get their apps to users quickly
• we want a dependable application lifecycle
• we want the system to be easy to understand and to develop on
• we want the system to be secure
• we want an app trust model where users are in control and express that control in tasteful, easy to understand ways

Snappy adds a few things to the above (that pertain to this conversation):

• we want the system to be bulletproof (transactional updates with rollbacks)
• we want the system to be easy to use for system builders
• we want the system to be easy to use and understand for admins

Let’s look at what all these mean more closely.

system-image upgrades

• we want system-image upgrades
• we want the system to be bulletproof (transactional updates with rollbacks)

We want system-image upgrades so updates are fast, reliable and so people (users, admins, snappy developers, system builders, etc) always know what they have and can depend on it being there. In addition, if an upgrade goes bad, we want a mechanism to be able to rollback the system to a known good state. In order to achieve this, apps need to work within the system and live in their own area and not modify the system in unpredictable ways. The Snappy FHS is designed for this and the security policy enforces that apps follow it. This protects us from malware, sure, but at least as importantly, it protects us from programming errors and well-intentioned clever people who might accidentally break the Snappy promise.

app store

• we want to replace the distro archive model with an app store model
• we want developers to be able to get their apps to users quickly

Ubuntu is a fantastic distribution and we have a wonderfully rich archive of software that is refreshed on a cadence. However, the traditional distro model has a number of drawbacks and arguably the most important one is that software developers have an extremely high barrier to overcome to get their software into users hands on their own time-frame. The app store model greatly helps developers and users desiring new software because it gives developers the freedom and ability to get their software out there quickly and easily, which is why Ubuntu Touch is doing this now.

In order to enable developers in the Ubuntu app store, we’ve developed a system where a developer can upload software and have it available to users in seconds with no human review, intervention or snags. We also want users to be able to trust what’s in Ubuntu’s store, so we’ve created store policies that understand the Ubuntu snappy system such that apps do not require any manual review so long as the developer follows the rules. However, the Ubuntu Core system itself is completely flexible– people can install apps that are tightly confined, loosely confined, unconfined, whatever (more on this, below). In this manner, people can develop snaps for their own needs and distribute them however they want.

It is the Ubuntu store policy that dictates what is in the store. The existing store policy is in place to improve the situation and is based on our experiences with the traditional distro model and attempts to build something app store-like experiences on top of it (eg, MyApps).

application lifecycle

• dependable application lifecycle

This has not been discussed as much with Snappy for Ubuntu Core, but Touch needs to have a good application lifecycle model such that apps cannot run unconstrained and unpredictably in the background. In other words, we want to avoid problems with battery drain and slow systems on Touch. I think we’ve done a good job so far on Touch, and this story is continuing to evolve.

(I mention application lifecycle in this conversation for completeness and because application lifecycle and security work together via the app’s application id)

security

• we want the system to be secure
• we want an app trust model where users are in control and express that control in tasteful, easy to understand ways

Everyone wants a system that they trust and that is secure, and security is one of the core tenants of Snappy systems. For Ubuntu Touch, we’ve created a
system that is secure, that is easy to use and understand by users, and that still honors relevant, meaningful Linux traditions. For Snappy, we’ll be adding several additional security features (eg, seccomp, controlled abstract socket communication, firewalling, etc).

Our security story and app store policies give us something that is between Apple and Google. We have a strong security story that has a number of similarities to Apple, but a lightweight store policy akin to Google Play. In addition to that, our trust model is that apps not needing manual review are untrusted by the OS and have limited access to the system. On Touch we use tasteful, contextual prompting so the user may trust the apps to do things beyond what the OS allows on its own (simple example, app needs access to location, user is prompted at the time of use if the app can access it, user answers and the decision is remembered next time).

Snappy for Ubuntu Core is different not only because the UI supports a CLI, but also because we’ve defined a Snappy for Ubuntu Core user that is able to run the ‘snappy’ command as someone who is an admin, a system builder, a developer and/or someone otherwise knowledgeable enough to make a more informed trust decision. (This will come up again later, below)

easy to use

• we want the system to be easy to understand and to develop on
• we want the system to be easy to use for system builders
• we want the system to be easy to use and understand for admins

We want a system that is easy to use and understand. It is key that developers are able to develop on it, system builders able to get their work done and admins can install and use the apps from the store.

For Ubuntu Touch, we’ve made a system that is easy to understand and to develop on with a simple declarative permissions model. We’ll refine that for Snappy and make it easy to develop on too. Remember, the security policy is there not just so we can be ‘super secure’ but because it is what gives us the assurances needed for system upgrades, a safe app store and an altogether bulletproof system.

As mentioned, the system we have designed is super flexible. Specifically, the underlying system supports:

1. apps working wholly within the security policy (aka, ‘common’ security policy groups and templates)
2. apps declaring specific exceptions to the security policy
3. apps declaring to use restricted security policy
4. apps declaring to run (effectively) unconfined
5. apps shipping hand-crafted policy (that can be strict or lenient)

(Keep in mind the Ubuntu App Store policy will auto-accept apps falling under ‘1’ and trigger manual review for the others)

The above all works today (though it isn’t always friendly– we’re working on that) and the developer is in control. As such, Snappy developers have a plethora of options and can create snaps with security policy for their needs. When the developer wants to ship the app and make it available to all Snappy users via the Ubuntu App Store, then the developer may choose to work within the system to have automated reviews or choose not to and manage the process via manual reviews/commercial relationship with Canonical.

Moving forward

The above works really well for Ubuntu Touch, but today there is too much friction with regard to hardware access. We will make this experience better without compromising on any of our goals. How do we put this all together, today, so people can get stuff done with snappy without sacrificing on our goals, making it harder on ourselves in the future or otherwise opening Pandora’s box? We don’t want to relax our security policy, because we can’t make the bulletproof assurances we are striving for and it would be hard to tighten the security. We could also add some temporary security policy that adds only certain accesses (eg, serial devices) but, while useful, this is too inflexible. We also don’t want to have apps declare the accesses themselves to automatically adds the necessary security policy, because this (potentially) privileged access is then hidden from the Snappy for Ubuntu Core user.

The answer is simple when we remember that the Snappy for Ubuntu Core user (ie, the one who is able to run the snappy command) is knowledgeable enough to make the trust decision for giving an app access to hardware. In other words, let the admin/developer/system builder be in control.

immediate term

The first thing we are going to do is unblock people and adjust snappy to give the snappy core user the ability to add specific device access to snap-specific security policy. In essence you’ll install a snap, then run a command to give the snap access to a particular device, then you’re done. This simple feature will unblock developers and snappy users immediately while still supporting our trust-model and goals fully. Plus it will be worth implementing since we will likely always want to support this for maximum flexibility and portability (since people can use traditional Linux APIs).

The user experience for this will be discussed and refined on the mailing list in the coming days.

short term

After that, we’ll build on this and explore ways to make the developer and user experience better through integration with the OEM part and ways of interacting with the underlying system so that the user doesn’t have to necessarily know the device name to add, but can instead be given smart choices (this can have tie-ins to the web interface for snappy too). We’ll want to be thinking about hotpluggable devices as well.

Since this all builds on the concept of the immediate term solution, it also supports our trust-model and goals fully and is relatively easy to implement.

future

Once we have the above in place, we should have a reasonable experience for snaps needing traditional device access. This will give us time to evaluate how people are accessing hardware and see if we can make things even better by using frameworks and/or a hardware abstraction layer. In this manner, snaps can program to an easy to use API and the system can mediate access to the underlying hardware via that API.